Off season cap space analysis league wide

[patman52]

This is a cut and past job from another forum, smart kid with a lot of time on his hands Thank you Texasdominance!


Total Roster Salary

I started by first assembling each team's current salaries. Here are the rankings from most cap taken up to least cap taken up:

1. Washington- 108.417
2. New York Jets- 98.796
3. Green Bay- 96.272
4. New York Giants- 91.596
5. Dallas- 90.606
6. Minnesota- 87.4587
7. St. Louis- 87.195
8. Denver- 84.582
9. Pittsburgh- 82.365
10. Atlanta- 79.341
11. Indianapolis- 78.456
12. Houston- 77.986
13. San Francisco- 77.225
14. Arizona- 75.53
15. Tennessee- 75.187
16. Detroit- 72.137
17. Chicago- 71.913
18. New Orleans- 68.632
19. Miami- 68.129
20. San Diego- 68.104
21. New England- 65.492
22. Baltimore- 65.466
23. Buffalo- 64.948
24. Cleveland- 64.6505
25. Seattle- 62.362
26. Cincinnati- 59.409
27. Jacksonville- 56.304
28. Philadelphia- 55.667
29. Tampa Bay- 51.709
30. Kansas City- 50.802
31. Carolina- 49.213
32. Oakland- 47.719



As we all can see Oakland has a very small team salary while Washington has a very large salary. I fully expect teams towards to top of the rankings to cut or trade "dead weight" players. Albert Hanesworth, Donovan McNabb, Jason Taylor, Ryan Grant (most likely will restructure), Corey Webster (restructure?) will be those players. It is possible that some of them will restructure their contract but I just don't see Donovan McNabb staying in Washington (if he did he would make 25 mil+). However, there is a missing piece to this "puzzle." How many players are signed per each team because if Washington has 45 players signed and Oakland has 25 then the ranking above makes sense. So let’s explore this a little more.

Total Players on Roster

1. New England- 46
2. Green Bay- 45
3. Buffalo- 42
4t. New York Giants- 41
4t. Tennessee- 41
4t. Jacksonville- 41
7t. Washington- 40
7t. Dallas- 40
7t. San Francisco- 40
7t. Miami- 40
7t. Philadelphia- 40
12. Denver- 39
13t. Indianapolis- 38
13t. Houston- 38
15t. St. Louis- 37
15t. Detroit- 37
15t. Chicago- 37
18. Cincinnati- 36
19. Atlanta- 35
20t. Pittsburgh- 34
20t. Tampa Bay- 34
20t. Carolina- 34
23. Minnesota- 33
24. New York Jets- 32
25t. Arizona- 31
25t. Cleveland- 31
25t. Seattle- 31
28. New Orleans- 30
29. San Diego- 28
30. Baltimore- 27
30t. Kansas City- 27
32. Oakland- 26



As we see, Oakland's roster is pretty small while surprisingly the Patriots have the most players under contract. (What was their ranking in terms of total salary? 21st, that’s right 21. Just shows how well run the Patriots are) With all their acquired draft picks New England won't have to sign anyone to fill the 53 man roster. I'm sure they will but this also tells me that once again they have extra picks to either trade or go and get who they want. I'm not saying that it will happen but what if New England wanted to trade up to number one? They have the picks to do it and imagine Tom Brady throwing to AJ Green next year or Patrick Peterson playing on the Patriots D. I'm sure it won't happen but if they really wanted to they could. But once again this doesn't tell us the whole picture. So lets combine total roster salary and players under contract and see who is best off.

Salary Per Player


Here are the rankings when you combine the data above:

1. New York Jets- 3.087375
2. Washington- 2.710425
3. Minnesota- 2.650263636
4. Arizona- 2.436451613
5. San Diego- 2.432285714
6. Baltimore- 2.424666667
7. Pittsburgh- 2.4225
8. St. Louis- 2.356621622
9. New Orleans- 2.287733333
10. Atlanta- 2.266885714
11. Dallas- 2.26515
12. New York Giants- 2.23404878
13. Denver- 2.168769231
14. Green Bay- 2.139377778
15. Cleveland- 2.0855
16. Indianapolis- 2.064631579
17. Houston- 2.052263158
18. Seattle- 2.011677419
19. Detroit- 1.949648649
20. Chicago- 1.943594595
21. San Francisco- 1.930625
22. Kansas City- 1.881555556
23. Oakland- 1.835346154
24. Tennessee- 1.833829268
25. Miami- 1.703225
26. Cincinnati- 1.65025
27. Buffalo- 1.546380952
28. Tampa Bay- 1.520852941
29. Carolina- 1.447441176
30. New England- 1.42373913
31. Philadelphia- 1.391675
32. Jacksonville- 1.373268293



With the current information the Jets look like they are in no position to sign big free agents, They have a lot of cap room tied up for a fairly low amount of players. Washington, Minnesota, Arizona, San Diego, Baltimore, all look in really bad shape to sign a big name FA. While Jacksonville, Philadelphia, New England, Miami all look in great position to possibly sign a big name, big contract free agent.

My Rankings


For this final section I will rank teams as I see their possibly to sign players, based solely on the data above. To remove my personal opinion about each team I gave each team a ranking based on the 3 categories above. 1 being the best and 32 being the worst. For the total number of players New England received a 32 because they had the most players, for the total roster salary New England received a 21 and for the salary per player they received a 30. Here is how the rankings are:

1. Jacksonville...86
2. Philadelphia...85
3. New England...83
4. Buffalo...80
5. Carolina...73
6t. Miami...70
6t. Tampa Bay...70
8. Tennessee...68
9. Cincinnati...67
10. Chicago...66
11. San Francisco...60
12. Oakland...56
13. Kansas City...55
14. Seattle...51
15. Houston...49
16t. Green Bay...48
16t. Detroit...48
18t. Cleveland...47
18t. Indianapolis...47
20. New York Giants...45
21t. Dallas...42
21t. Denver...42
23. Atlanta...35
24. St. Louis...33
25. New Orleans...32
26. Baltimore...31
27t. Washington...29
27t. San Diego...29
27t. Pittsburgh...29
30. Arizona...26
31. Minnesota...18
32. New York Jets...12

I realize that this might not have been the best way to rank them but I wanted to try to eliminate the human element as much as I could and only look at the raw data.

Conclusion: This analysis was purely data and was only based on money. Money is the biggest part of deciding where a free agent goes but not the sole. The rankings above give everyone a general idea of which teams have the strongest possibility (monetary wise) to sign a big time free agent. So don't be surprised if Jacksonville, Phili, or Buffalo spend lots of money this offseason. They have the power to but in the end its whether the owners want to shell out the cash for the high priced players

 

[MoLewisrocks]

There was a link to this in another thread a few days ago. If indeed he is merely totaling up salaries from this season the information is fairly meaningless absent the context of bonus and bonus amortization (or cap #). The Pats payroll for this season was reportedly upwards of $148M (because of substantial signing bonus paid to Brady, Wilfork and Bodden in 2010), and our cap number in 2010 was in the $130M+ range. Over on JETSCAP they show their 2011 cap # as $118M with 51 players albeit a couple of dozen being futures and PS and bottom of the roster players since several of their 2010 starters are pending UFA in 2011.

 

[bucky]

Very interesting. Of course we don't know how accurate this is. And most importantly, we don't even know whether there will be a cap in 2011 and if so, how big it'll be.

But if the cap comes back as most assume, this basically quantifies what many on this board have thought all along - the Pats are in great cap shape and the Jets are in awful cap shape.

 

[patman52]

This was not meant to be how much space each team has but how much space each team has in relationship to the other teams and player under contract.

There will be a salary cap, make no mistake about it. Even the players union is willing to go back to 2009, it is the owners that opted out and will most likely declare an Impasse and impose new rules, If this happens and the union decertifies the owners will lock out the players. But if there is a season there will be a cap.


Well league wide I read somewhere that about 25%-35% of the value of contracts is attributed to signing bonus. Of course this year the pats will have an even higher percentage to the the "short term" nature of brady's 4, wilfork's, 5 and bodden's 4 year amortization. These contracts will probably have the effect of about 40% of the pats cap dedicated to bonus amortization. Which wil have the Pats about the 100 mill level.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

This was not meant to be how much space each team has but how much space each team has in relationship to the other teams and player under contract.

There will be a salary cap, make no mistake about it. Even the players union is willing to go back to 2009, it is the owners that opted out and will most likely declare an Impasse and impose new rules, If this happens and the union decertifies the owners will lock out the players. But if there is a season there will be a cap.


Well league wide I read somewhere that about 25%-35% of the value of contracts is attributed to signing bonus. Of course this year the pats will have an even higher percentage to the the "short term" nature of brady's 4, wilfork's, 5 and bodden's 4 year amortization. These contracts will probably have the effect of about 40% of the pats cap dedicated to bonus amortization. Which wil have the Pats about the 100 mill level.

This guy doesn't even have the players under contract right. And he doesn't have the relavant dollar figures right (cap). The JETS are up to 53 roster players now although a couple of dozen of them are PS players and futures contracts guys and camp fodder if there is camp in 2011. Most teams in a normal season will have upwards of 80 on the roster post draft.

The union can't decertify once a lockout is in effect. They have to do so before hand. Just like the owners have to decide to declare an impass and play by their own rules (subject to court challenge) OR lock the players out.

Brady's amortization is over 5 years because he received his new signing bonus ($16M) in 2010. As a percentage of his total contract his new signing bonus represented only about 20% of his deal. He has guarantees that total in excess of 60% of his deal. Brady has roster bonuses throughout his deal that the information you site doesn't account for. They are neither salary or amortized (although they can be converted to signing bonus and amortized, as can salary...) (Wilfork's signing bonus was $18M on a $40M total deal. Bodden's was only $6M on a $22M deal.

People who don't totally grasp how the NFL cap works and can be worked or have only portions of contracts accounted for have a hard time attempting to quantify relative cap standing, space or flexibility based on incomplete data. The JETS will do a lot of cuts and restructures to free up space. The problem for them is given the level of talent drain that already exists via their own pending FA (starters at WR, WR, CB, ILB just to name the most significant) it will be tough to maintain let alone improve on a team that won 11 games and lost in the second round of the playoffs. Particularly given their draft position. And unless a couple of their 2010 draftees (CB, OG, RB) improve dramatically Tannenbaum's task will be even more daunting because in order to make cuts either to gain cap space or upgrade talent he may be looking at cutting veterans who were starters in 2010.

Looks like they will finally end the Gholston experiment though, although it will only save them $400K because of his still remaining dead cap...and they can probably replace him on the inactive squad for that.

 

[PatsFanSince74]

That's a lot of work by whoever did it, but I share the concerns voiced about the data and exactly what this is a snapshot of. Nonetheless, as someone who spends a lot of time with statistics, I distinguish between "stuff we can conclude from the data" and "stuff that is interesting based on the data."

There's not much we can "conclude" from this data for the reasons that Mo pointed out, but I found a couple of things that I thought were "interesting" and might or might not be reinforced by better data.

Since the data are shaky, I decided just to look at buckets of teams and went with the top and bottom quartiles (in this case, the top and bottom eight teams) of the Total Roster Salary and Salary Per Player lists.

If you look at the two top quartiles, we find that four of this year's playoff teams can be found in the top two quartiles (Jets, Packers, Ravens, Steelers). When we look at the bottom two quartiles, we also find that four of the playoff teams are there (Chiefs, Eagles, Pats, Seahawks). So, that suggests that where you fall on these lists doesn't make any difference to your performance.

However, if we look at the four teams that survived to Championship Weekend, we find that three of the four (Jets, Packers, Steelers) were in one or both of the two top quartiles. Three of four is too "in your face" to be ignored. Add to that observation, the fact that the two "survivors" (Packers, Steelers) are also up there, it definitely gets into the category of "interesting."

 

[Urgent]

Miguel had the Patriots in the $130-135mm range for 2010.

That included:
$11mm+ in 'dead money' for Adalius Thomas and Shawn Springs
$11mm+ in IR for just Ty Warren and Leigh Bodden, plus another nine IR players
Another $6mm+ for Moss
And so forth.

I don't know where the figure of $65mm for the Patriots comes from - maybe just salaries for signed players, not including any pro-rated signing bonus figures. If you simply take the 2010 'cap charges' (using Miguel's normal cap accounting) and project those exact numbers into 2011 (without looking into specifics for 2011) you get the range of $95-$100mm. For example, Brady had a salary of $7.5mm in 2010, and cap cost of about $17mm.

If you assume that most teams have sort of similar signing bonus accounting, you might end up with somewhat relatively similar figures.

Several different approaches point in the direction of the Patriots having a strong financial position relative to salaries, risk of UFA losses, and team performance.

Interesting note from looking at the 2010 salary cap:
4 of the 5 top salary charges for 2010 were not on the team:
Thomas, Moss, Warren, and Bodden

 

[seven]

I feel like Rumsfeld, I don't know what I don't know.

NFL Salaries 2010, NFL Salaries Cap, NFL Salaries By Position, Team.
This list has Pats 2010 at $ 92,734,120.
Oakland on top at: $ 152,389,371

So is the posted list the remaining/current obligations,
with current free agents/unsigned players deducted?

 

[Ring 6]

This guy doesn't even have the players under contract right. And he doesn't have the relavant dollar figures right (cap). The JETS are up to 53 roster players now although a couple of dozen of them are PS players and futures contracts guys and camp fodder if there is camp in 2011. Most teams in a normal season will have upwards of 80 on the roster post draft.

The union can't decertify once a lockout is in effect. They have to do so before hand. Just like the owners have to decide to declare an impass and play by their own rules (subject to court challenge) OR lock the players out.

Brady's amortization is over 5 years because he received his new signing bonus ($16M) in 2010. As a percentage of his total contract his new signing bonus represented only about 20% of his deal. He has guarantees that total in excess of 60% of his deal. Brady has roster bonuses throughout his deal that the information you site doesn't account for. They are neither salary or amortized (although they can be converted to signing bonus and amortized, as can salary...) (Wilfork's signing bonus was $18M on a $40M total deal. Bodden's was only $6M on a $22M deal.

People who don't totally grasp how the NFL cap works and can be worked or have only portions of contracts accounted for have a hard time attempting to quantify relative cap standing, space or flexibility based on incomplete data. The JETS will do a lot of cuts and restructures to free up space. The problem for them is given the level of talent drain that already exists via their own pending FA (starters at WR, WR, CB, ILB just to name the most significant) it will be tough to maintain let alone improve on a team that won 11 games and lost in the second round of the playoffs. Particularly given their draft position. And unless a couple of their 2010 draftees (CB, OG, RB) improve dramatically Tannenbaum's task will be even more daunting because in order to make cuts either to gain cap space or upgrade talent he may be looking at cutting veterans who were starters in 2010.

Looks like they will finally end the Gholston experiment though, although it will only save them $400K because of his still remaining dead cap...and they can probably replace him on the inactive squad for that.

I think that he is using players on the 53 man roster (and IR I assume) as players under contract and not counting the players who were practice sqaud or future contracts.

 

[BradyBranch39]

what I take out of this: I'd like Ryan Grant.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

I think that he is using players on the 53 man roster (and IR I assume) as players under contract and not counting the players who were practice sqaud or future contracts.

That wouldn't remotely explain a $24M discrepancy between his figures and the guy who maintains NYJETSCAP.com. I think he uses salary only and from 2010 rather than 2011 and doesn't factor in signing bonus amortization or roster bonuses or workout bonuses or anything else that is part of both payroll and cap #...

 

[Ring 6]

That wouldn't remotely explain a $24M discrepancy between his figures and the guy who maintains NYJETSCAP.com. I think he uses salary only and from 2010 rather than 2011 and doesn't factor in signing bonus amortization or roster bonuses or workout bonuses or anything else that is part of both payroll and cap #...

I was talking about the number of players under contract